HP-B8 : Morality Most Grey
by Gojirob
Summary: The new Minister For Magic faces a decision that should be easy but instead tears at him. Kingsley Shacklebolt will seek every sort of advice as he seeks the wisdom to stand in final judgment over another living being. Part of a series, "Harry Potter And The Crazy Eighth"


Morality Most Grey

by Rob Morris

LONDON, 1999

_**1**_

The Prime Minister and his guest saw the picture move, and heard its occupant speak.

"Damn the timing."

His guest shrugged.

"Should I call in the boys?"

"No. If this is a positive visit, we have nothing to fear. If a negative one, then all our boys, girls, and all their guns will mean very little."

The guest managed a smile.

"Oh-so just how is this unusual?"

His friend's smile helped only a little. The Prime Minister was honestly awaiting the very worst.

"Prime Minister?"

In fact, it was far from the worst. The man who emerged was not at all unfamiliar to those offices.

"Kingsley?"

Kingsley Shacklebolt saw the pleading on his counterpart and former employer's face, and started with his best foot forward.

"It's all done, and our side has won. Voldemort is no more."

The guest chimed in with a surprise.

"Nasty son-bitch, wasn't he? Worst since-Grundlewood?"

Shacklebolt looked over the guest, trying to place his face.

"Grindlewald."

The visitor grinned.

"Sorry. I'm just a poor boy made good."

The grin became positively mischievous as he spoke again.

"But my wife-she went to all the *_very best_* schools."

They both picked up on that comment. The Prime Minister had never felt more awkward. He looked gingerly at his guest.

"He-and I-we have to-matters of Britain that I-"

The guest raised a calming hand.

"Come late January, every four years, we get a visitor of our own-all except Dick in his second term. Way too jumpy, after that weird guy with the telephone booth. Mister Shacklebolt-pleased to meet ya."

The man saw himself into the next office, where he doubtlessly told aides that there was no cause for concern. The Prime Minister seated his new guest.

"No offense, Kingsley-but did it have to be here and now?"

"Trust me, Prime Minister-it did. Secrecy is one of our most held-to beliefs concerning relations between the two worlds, but sometimes secrecy is only well-served by immediately letting those who already know the secret that the all-clear has been sounded. Too much potential for panic otherwise, and the wizarding community has reasons to fear Muggle panic."

The Prime Minister calmed himself and joked a little.

"I still wish you lot could do something about those awful Bewitched reruns Sky got a hold of. My daughter and mother-in-law spend whole afternoons with them."

Shacklebolt nodded.

"Yes. Queen Samantha has decried the biographical inaccuracies of that series. But still-it does need to be a fictionalization, to serve its purpose."

Whether Shacklebolt was joking was something his peer chose to ignore-perhaps for his own peace of mind.

"Well, should we expect Mister Scrimgeour, or has Mister Fudge found his way back to MfM?"

Shacklebolt shook his head.

"Rufus died in the struggle, standing taller than I would have thought, even though we had no real quarrels. He refused to yield up Harry Potter."

The PM moved to firm his ground a bit.

"The one who until recently lived on Privet Drive in Little Whinging?"

Shacklebolt was handed a file.

"You move quickly, Prime Minister. A name mentioned in passing, and you have all this."

The Prime Minister nodded.

"Seemed prudent. He was the only Potter that fit the profile of a might-be wizard. Odd goings on, a school no one was sure of. Dreadful little cultural cul-de-sac of a neighborhood, so I'm told. You might want to note the papers from Child Welfare."

Shacklebolt shook his head.

"The worker sent out says, had the Dursleys not been Harry's blood, he would have taken the boy to his own home that same day. That sounds about right for them. More's the pity."

The PM nodded and got back on track.

"So Scrimgeour stood firm, and I take it Fudge is in no higher regard than he was when last we met. So who then-"

Shacklebolt didn't need to speak. His peer finally caught on.

"Congratulations, Kingsley. Well-done, and well-earned!"

"I only hope that stays true, Prime Minister. I am going to attempt to radically transform my office, which has known some deep tarnish of late."

"As to that, it's already transformed."

Shacklebolt did not get his meaning.

"Sir?"

"Kingsley, not to be crude, but-Fudge and Scrimgeour struck me as nothing more or less than office-seekers and place-keepers. I don't dismiss the position you three have held, but the men themselves were sorely lacking. Only in you do I and have I sensed-a true leader. You are the sort of man I wouldn't mind handing this office over to."

Shacklebolt was not a man given to blush. He was thankful for this at that moment.

"Prime Minister, I'm not even an MP. And candidates for high office are scrutinized in ways no mere aide or assistant could imagine."

The Prime Minister refused to amend his assessment.

"There are ways. Muggles are known to insert people into positions as well, Kingsley. I'll tell you what : Should the time ever come that you are interested in what could be a long path to this office as your own, let me know. I'll wager the best minds of two worlds could make it happen."

"Thank you, sir. But before you make book on that, I'd have to at least broach it with the Wizengamot-our legislature, after a fashion."

"They'll agree to it. You will be one of the greats in both offices, Minister Shacklebolt. May I suggest we extend our ties one step further?"

Shacklebolt nodded.

"Glad to, Prime Minister. But what about your guest?"

"Him? He's probably napping. I'm afraid the impeachment hearings took quite a bit out of him."

Shacklebolt felt his eyes go wide. They then narrowed a bit.

"You could have told me, you know."

"And missed the look on your face? Now, in the interest of ties between my world and a world that is for now perhaps best hidden, I, as Prime Minister Of Great Britain, do hereby appoint Kingsley Shacklebolt Minister For Magic and Magical Affairs. Now, you."

Shacklebolt fought off a smile. This was a silly and yet a historic gesture at the same time.

"I, as Minister For Magic, do hereby appoint you Prime Minister for Great Britain and all non-magical affairs. Will this-will this actually mean anything, in the long term?"

The Prime Minister nodded.

"As long as we're both alive, we'll harass our successors into continuing this. By the time we're both done-it'll be tradition. Will it always mean absolute peace? No. But it will at least remind two people with an awful lot of power and responsibility that there was such a time of peace and mutual respect. It worked for Arthur, didn't it?"

Shacklebolt added :

"And Merlin."

The Prime Minister grew misty-eyed.

"To think of all those old stories being real..."

"Prime Minister, another set of stories Muggles tell is also quite real, and it's part of the reason I came here, beyond the courtesy. I need your advice, sir. I fear that I'm more than a little lost on this matter."

The Prime Minister checked the time.

"May our guest sit in on this? I don't like keeping an ambassador waiting this long, let alone him."

"Frankly, Prime Minister, I would welcome his input."

Their esteemed guest was indeed called back in, and as the Prime Minister predicted, he welcomed the chance to weigh in on a wizarding world concern. Shacklebolt nodded at the resident of the announcing portrait, who nodded back and departed. In his place, a series of images began to play. Since the two other leaders were used to television, this was not as great a shock as Shacklebolt's entrance itself was.

"Gentlemen, this man was never properly a Death Eater-one of Voldemort's wizarding followers. He followed him, like so many other aligned groups, out of a vague promise to be able to do what he wished, to have rights greater than the Ministry allowed his group. It is not too difficult to imagine one betraying the other at a future point-Voldemort likely had plans for all his secondary allies. Yet in his own way, he is and was more dangerous than any wizard. I'm sorry to say you will see why in just a moment."

As the man in the image attacked an opponent, two leaders used to raw footage visibly turned away.

"It gets worse-and so does he."

At first, the other two leaders thought the image was distorting. It was not. The man himself was distorting. Their American guest felt compelled to give comment, perhaps in an attempt to deal with the horror he saw.

"That's no damn CGI, man."

Shacklebolt stopped the video-like play.

"He is exactly what you think he is. He enjoys what he is, to the extent transformation is almost a dress uniform for him. He, for want of a better term, proselytizes for his viewpoint. Likes to turn them young, so their alienation from society is complete. He is what the Muggle stories tell of in every respect-except for his situation's purported major vulnerability."

The Prime Minister showed the horror in his own voice.

"Yes, let's have all the minuses and none of the pluses."

The President started what Shacklebolt knew must follow.

"Minister, just where is this character right now?"

"I am happy to say, sir, that, for the moment anyway, he is firmly in our custody."

The Prime Minister picked up on what was not said.

"Do you have expectations that this situation will change?"

Shacklebolt found that the answer was one he liked not one bit.

"Less expectations and more gravest fears. We've recently been forced - in a good way - to reform our methods of imprisonment. For most, it will still be something they wish to avoid. For this one, I think that he will laugh off our best efforts. Escape from inside is at least as likely as the remnants of his followers attempting to break him out."

The Prime Minister and his guest were showing signs of 'Muggle Overload', the tendency of even those few non-Wizarding folks in the know to eventually find the whole thing too much. But Shacklebolt needed the advice of peers, however removed, and so kept on.

"We've recently undertaken to place Aurors-our constabulary force-on oil rig crews in the North Atlantic. They check in with one another, ringing our major prison facility and being already present should an escapee attempt to find their way to one of these. This did happen, involving a group that included one Bellatrix LeStrange, now deceased."

The Prime Minister nodded grimly.

"Yes, Fudge told me of this before communications ceased. Given what happened to that rig's crew, I can't say I'm displeased she's no longer with us."

The President seemed to be considering some words, but instead he blurted out a latitude and longitude that the Minister For Magic knew all too well, a location in the North Atlantic. Shacklebolt fought off dumb shock.

"Your spy satellites?"

"Sorta-kinda. After a recent upgrade, there's a spot where there's a whole lotta nothin', but the sun don't shine, so to speak. Boris complained about the same thing. I'm thinking maybe your chameleon needs to check its blending-in systems. Got a similar thing going on down in the South Pacific-something about a sunken city most would just as soon stay sunk."

Shacklebolt thanked the man for his information. Azkaban was in no imminent danger of being accidentally plotted - the non-anomaly/anomaly the President had mentioned was ten kilometers across on all fronts. But the fact that these new satellites could even tell that there was something partway wrong in that area was of concern all by itself.

"Kingsley? Is it possible to keep Azkaban aside for only the worst, like this fellow, while keeping minor scofflaws elsewhere? Seems a bit baby and bathwater to have types like this one thrown in with types like that-Filcher-was his name? By isolating the population a bit, you could justifiably go harsher than is normally allowed for."

Shacklebolt would later learn that Fletcher had tried to use the war's chaos to up his usual ante and pursue nothing less than the Stone Of Scone. His thwarting in this effort had been among Fudge's last reports before Thicknesse took over as Voldemort's puppet.

"It is under consideration, Prime Minister. But our feral guest is a concern of the here and now. I'm also afraid any prisoner transfers would open up windows of opportunity for him and our other current inmates as well."

The Prime Minister looked sheepish.

"Of course. That's simple logistics. Foolish of me to even suggest it. Kings-Minister-would you label this one a recidivism risk?"

Shacklebolt sighed.

"I only wish he were simply a risk, Prime Minister. No, no risk. Full and immediate resumption of his activities is a given, all of a certainty."

The Prime Minister shook his head.

"We recently caught a bank robber from 1973. He'd laid low, spent his ill-gotten gains slowly and wisely, and even become a bank officer at a branch of the bank he'd stolen from. He'd invested enough of it that he was able to give it all back. A model citizen, but for his past. Then there was a pedophile released three months ago. We discovered he targeted the younger siblings of his original victim mere hours after walking out the front doors of his rehabilitation center. A robber for money might be wise enough to lay low. A robber of lives and happiness almost never will."

All three knew better than to romanticize financial thieves, from the common like Fletcher to those America and the world had faced and would face in the coming decade, making billions in nebulous corners while personal savings vanished for so many. But there was a basic truth in what the Prime Minister said, and it spurred the President to at last speak his mind.

"Minister, there's an individual that the laws of my country won't allow me to go after the way we may need to. Now that's not a bad thing- these laws are in place for a reason. But eventually you come to that one person who you think that the hearings would be worth it for. He's attacked us a few times-and I know in my heart that the son of a bitch is gonna eventually break something big. I pity the one who's sitting in my office when that call comes. They're gonna catch the same sort of crap-flack that FDR did over Pearl Harbor."

Shacklebolt vaguely recalled accusations that placed Roosevelt and/or Churchill in a conspiracy of silence concerning possible prior knowledge of that attack.

"Like I say, my hands are tied in a way that only a highly visible act of war from that group is going to change. We're good folk, but it sometimes takes smoke in our face before we see there's a fire. But Mister Shacklebolt-Kingsley-you already have that man in your custody. If I had the one I've been talking about in mine, I'd find a way to make damned sure he never leaves it."

The grim implications of the President's words were felt fully by his peers. The Prime Minister, needing to resume private time with the American leader, tried to aid his former aide in finding his center.

"You know, sometimes, when issues seem to do nothing but arouse cynicism and grim tidings, I find talking to young activists-people not yet muddied and muddled by needing to obtain and keep a position in government-to be enormously helpful. Their idealism and often even their naiveté can help bring focus to things that are dimly lit."

The President quickly concurred, making an awkward joke about his own recent troubles, but agreeing entirely with the Prime Minister. As Shacklebolt rose to leave, he thanked his host and their guest and also agreed with these words.

"And I think that I know just the two to ask."

_**2**_

Three days later, the Minister For Magic gave an early morning order that he dearly hoped would be the most dreadful of his entire term. By eleven that morning, he received word that the order had been carried out, and that his two guests were waiting. Oddly, these two were in some ways as much his peers as the two world leaders he'd recently spoken with, yet while firmly part of the wizarding world, they were also as greatly removed from his concerns. This was how he wanted it. Too far out, they could never hope to understand. Too close in, and they could not help but simply endorse his choice. The pair were not yet eighteen, and still they were treated with reverence by his staff, reverence that was due those that had saved the world.

"I am a bit surprised you could both come on such short notice. I had heard Arthur had taken his family somewhere on sabbatical for a month."

Hermione Granger nodded.

"Headmistress McGonagall personally asked that we stay while Hogwarts is under what she called close-to-total-rebuilding. Also, with Ron and Ginny surrounded by their entire family-not very much alone time, you understand. Not that we don't love them all."

Harry Potter looked at least somewhat rested. Shacklebolt regretted the six-month delay in making him an active Auror, but the hunger for his blood on the part of the remaining hardcore Death Eaters meant putting him in a squad was logistically dicey. Several Auror squads who had members serve as 'Polyjuice Potters' found themselves focusing all their efforts on keeping that one alive, as the worst could not resist attacking him all-out, this while the near-worst made good their escapes.

"It'll be soon, Harry. We're whittling down the list. Pretty soon all we'll have left is the opportunists he picked up along the way."

Since Shacklebolt had sat down and explained the whole thing to Harry the instant it became clear, there was no animosity shown. McGonagall had warned the Minister not to let Potter fester when it came to such things, not just because of the young man himself, but because likely Dumbledore had, while meaning well, used up Harry's well of patience on that front for a lifetime.

"It's good, Minister. And as for the Weasleys, it's very much like Hermione said. Ron now has the attention in his family he always wanted - just not how he wanted it. He's kind of filling the balance that some of his other brothers used to, and he asked me to stay back, since he didn't want to lash out in my direction while he handles all this."

Shacklebolt knew it all too well. One son dead, his twin maimed. One infected with a feral streak, and one more earning his acceptance back after spurning his clan. Ron was now the superstar of his family, eternally one of 'The Trio' as the younger folks liked to say.

"I hope you'll forgive one more bit of side business before we start. Frank and Alice? What exactly is happening there?"

Both young people got pained looks. Harry let Hermione go first.

"It's not what everyone has been saying. Neville left to go see them, as he always does at the end of term. While he sat there reading an Herbology periodical, his mother sat up and asked for a glass of water. His father said 'Yes, that would be nice'."

Harry shrugged.

"They are not recovered. While that is by all definitions a flat-out miracle for someone in their state, they have said nothing more and have since resumed their previous state-which as you know-can really put you off. It's hit Neville like a thousand hexes all at once, followed by a kick to the groin. He really wanted to believe this was the first sign. We're researching at Hogwarts' library why they would even show this much change."

Hermione gained a small grin, despite the painful subject.

"Yes-you heard right-he is doing research. It seems without plots or assassins at his back, our boy is actually a good student!"

The grin vanished.

"I'm not dismissing or making light of the Longbottoms. It's just that I would like it a lot if fate would leave poor Neville be. Now he's going to spend years waiting on that island of lucidity to resurface-and it may never do so."

Harry Potter took and squeezed her hand.

"Hey-he's stronger than any of us ever gave him credit for, myself included. His Gran may find that out soon enough."

She squeezed back, and that simple tenderness helped Shacklebolt to gird himself for delivering the shocks to come. He resisted asking about Draco Malfoy's status - he had been there as the young man, who had never completed his sixth or seventh year had also had his fifth taken from him, the minimum punishment for keeping his silence on the conspiracy to kill Albus Dumbledore, the only item he had been directly charged with. Despite Harry and Kingsley's request that the Malfoys' last-minute change absolve them completely, the oldest wizard on the Wizengamot, humiliated and paraded before Death Eaters who took him captive, had threatened to take his chances with a full list of public charges against the family if some punishment did not come down. The shock had been that young Malfoy had agreed to go back to Hogwarts, where reportedly some newer Slytherins with no Death Eater ideology had openly spurned him.

The Minister for Magic began to talk to two of his eventual successors.

"By what I tell you now, I do not seek permission or endorsement. If you wish to excoriate me for what I have done, I only ask that you tell me why in full. This is not the Ministry looking for good publicity. This is the Minister looking for guidance."

The earnest pleading in the man's eyes told his younger guests what they already knew. This was a sincere man with a sincere concern, and they were rightly honored that he would turn to them in his time of need.

"This morning, I issued two orders. One was I hope the most heinous thing I will ever undertake or allow to be undertaken in this office. The second order took that very same action as an option away from the Minister in perpetuity. It would take another Voldemort at the gates to allow me to even ask the Wizengamot to consider reversing this ban."

Harry raised a concern.

"At the gates? Minister, that was part of the problem all along. Fudge waited till he was already at the gates before even allowing for the truth and reality."

Hermione tried to be more diplomatic.

"That-is a bit late, Minister."

Shacklebolt nodded in agreement.

"I know. But once I tell you of this action, I think you will understand why I do not wish it easily repeated."

Neither young person, and even the absent Ron Weasley, would ever tell the MfM to 'Get On With It', but Shacklebolt felt it in the air enough to stop waltzing around the subject.

"This morning, sometime around 11AM, I ordered that one of our most dangerous prisoners be placed in the same 'containment zone' we are using to slowly depower and ultimately reduce the Dementor population. As you might imagine, they moved on this prisoner at all speed and subjected them to the dreaded kiss. The prisoner was then recovered and taken to his cell in Azkaban, where they have not moved or stirred."

Shacklebolt let the pair digest that news, and then finished up.

"That prisoner was Fenrir Greyback. It was not done to punish, or merely to punish. I ordered it done because I asked the question, What would he do if he should escape again, even for a very brief period? Most prisoners would lie low, or only attack those stupid enough to deal with them or unfortunate enough to get in their way. Even among the survivors of the worst of those we recently fought against, he stands out. His agenda included mass lycanthropic infection of the youngest and most vulnerable, and his taste for blood, as you well know, was a month-long affair, not merely restricted to the handful of nights of the full moon."

"Blood and flesh", muttered Harry.

"Yes. Well, this thing is done, except it isn't. I'll hear about it-the new reform minister ignoring his own speeches. I can take that and then some. What I fear most, and the reason I asked you here, is to help me to avoid this Ministry once again becoming the home to the kind of circular logic that led to such travesties as Harry's hearing. I mean, how much distance is there really between what I've ordered done and what this office did to Sirius Black?"

Hermione shook her head.

"Myself, Minister, I'd say that distance is a huge one. You can't compare a man sent away without trial or real evidence to one who openly bragged of what he had done and what he would do next."

Harry bit down before answering.

"He must have sniffed Tonks after she fell. I heard him say as he was led off that he could smell that she had given birth recently-he made a vow to find the baby and infect him as well. I kicked him where, Dementor's Kiss or no, he won't ever forget it."

Shacklebolt, while not ignoring Harry, chose to let his comment stand and answered Hermione's words instead.

"I know, Miss Granger, that there are differences-huge, vast and deep differences, between cases such as Sirius and Stan Shunpike and those of complete monsters like Greyback. It is still the similarities that haunt me. The morality and ethics we set aside, however briefly, in the latter's case may eventually haunt a future innocent, as some successor of mine says, 'Well, look at Shacklebolt and Greyback.' My fear is that a difficult decision made by a moral man-or one who sincerely hopes that he is moral-will be used to enable easy decisions made by men who lean towards expediency."

Hermione suddenly looked like she'd been seized by a thought, so a slightly calmer Harry kept up their half of the conversation.

"You can't prevent that, anymore than I can keep the public eye from making me either a prat facing imminent nervous breakdown or bloody Kal-El come out of the rocket-ship. Even I eventually get this one, Minister-people will think what they will. Look at a Muggle classic-are Shakespeare's Brutus and Cassius heroes of freedom or terror-spreading anarchists? Which one did Shakespeare mean?"

Harry looked over at Hermione, who had walked past an opening to taunt him playfully about suddenly displaying knowledge like that. He realized she was in deep thought, and kept going himself.

"Minister, you know I'm biased on the issue of Greyback. Too many friends, too many people hurt and destroyed by him in a casual motion. But I can put most of that aside and assert what you did-that nothing short of the order you gave would keep him from getting out and doing it all again with a grin on his ugly face. If freed even briefly, he would hurt and kill again. He's almost an advert in favor of the harshest measures to use against a criminal. The Kiss is a horrible thing - but if it is at long last what stops him-"

"It won't stop him, Harry-Minister."

Hermione shook her head.

"Minister, you must go one step further and kill Fenrir Greyback."

If Shacklebolt had any prior expectations from calling on these two, it was that Harry would be all for this, and Hermione repulsed by it, at least on the merits if never on Greyback's behalf. Neither he nor Potter expected anything of this sort from the young brilliant witch.

"Haven't I all but done that already? Until his recent death, Barty Crouch Junior barely moved from his cell. Most-recipients of the kiss do no better. None ever show more than a realization that they are still alive-and that's a real cruelty in my opinion."

The younger Crouch had died mere moments after the distant final death of his Dark Lord, supposed by some to be the result of a special secret oath the most fervent Death Eaters had taken. Harry Potter showed that he did not know everything about his dear friend.

"I think I understand what she means, Minister. Perhaps a halfway measure, however harsh, is the same thing as outright execution. I'm repulsed by both Greyback and the Kiss in equal measures, so maybe my advice isn't all that us..."

"I'm not playing psychology games, Harry! Wartime and its immediate aftermath does allow for some rules and laws-even sacred ones-to be set aside for the greater good. I agree with the Minister's aim to be rid of Greyback, and support the reasons he cited. Yet again, though, it is not nearly enough. Dumbledore told the wizarding world not to rely on the Dementors, and now I think he meant not merely their dubious loyalty but also the entire notion that their ghastly works are by definition final. Sirius held on despite them-so did many of the worst Death Eaters."

Shacklebolt shook his head.

"That was their mere presence-not the Kiss itself."

Harry looked chilled.

"Sirius told me that, for most, long-term exposure to those monsters was all the same as a kiss. But he held on. Bellatrix held on-it's hard for me to imagine she was worse mentally coming out than she was going in."

The Minister was not gaining the solid footing he'd hoped from these two.

"What are you saying, Harry?"

Potter shrugged.

"I'm saying that if Hermione has a notion, you'd best listen. She's usually more correct in her wrongest moments than some scholars in their fields are in their thesis papers."

Hermione seemed to be on the verge of blushing, but restrained her reaction to a look of pleasant surprise aimed at her friend.

"Thank-you, Harry. Minister, Greyback lived so much of his life trying to be more beast than man. I'd say a good portion of his soul may have been lost to that descent already. If the Dementors removed what was left of the man, then what you may have is a pure beast with the barest memories and stirrings of the psychotic Fenrir Greyback."

An almost unseen look from Harry kept Hermione's tendency to expound well past her point from taking over. But in fact, that point had taken over the whole room.

Finally, Shacklebolt broke the silence.

"I went around my pledge to be a different sort of Minister not five minutes into my tenure, because I judged Greyback to be a threat significant enough to demand I act in the harshest manner possible."

He stood up.

"I honestly had thought you two-even you, Harry-would rake me over the coals for doing this. Imagine my surprise when I'm made to learn that if anything, I wasn't harsh enough. Your point is taken, Hermione. Though I had hoped to show his followers that more than simple execution awaited those that considered surrender."

Harry shook his head.

"Those that truly are his followers, you'll have little to no chance with. But those that went along because they feared him, or felt his deliberate infection left them with no choice? Them, you'll have a chance with, Minister. Perhaps even a greater chance, once they learn he's simply never coming back. But you must do more."

Shacklebolt briefly feared Harry was about to bring up dismemberment and display.

"Go on."

These fears would happily prove to be misplaced.

"Minister, there are a host of anti-werewolf laws on the books-perhaps even more than for any other group outside the standard-probably in part because for the most part, only a werewolf can also be a wizard or witch. Some are perhaps sad common sense. But I can tell you, both from Remus' words and my own studies-the vast majority of these laws are the most awful sort of rubbish-and should really be treated as such. You have that chance, and if you want mass surrenders of werewolf fugitives, and if you want those who are turned in the future to not become potential true monsters, you must take it and see that those laws are repealed. The ones that Umbridge added on in her time, the ones that you helped dispose of, were merely the most egregious. There are many others, some hidden away in seemingly unrelated legislation and policy."

If Hermione held back before, she found she could not any longer.

"Just where are you suddenly finding time for all these studies?"

Harry kept his retort sharp but short.

"One, your ribbing aside, you'd be surprised what kind of time you gain when you're not fending off a conspiracy or preparing for a war. Two-even though Teddy Lupin shows no signs of lycanthropy, I owe it to him and his parents to make certain that the laws that made his father's life so difficult are at the least amended. To Teddy-I am Sirius Black. I want us to have the kind of relationship Sirius and I never could, growing up. That means doing for my godson before he even leaves the cradle."

"Harry, I hadn't meant to be..."

"I know, and I'm sorry to be defensive. But-you really would be surprised the kind of study you can accomplish when you're used to random detentions, assassins, and glaring headlines coming up in your face all the time."

Hermione conceded that point, and also brought up a last one to their host.

"Minister, there will be cases and situations worthy of your self-torment. We know, as do most, that you possess the insight and depth to pursue cases and policies without the baby and bathwater approach of your predecessors. But Greyback? If there must be harsh penalties, including the harshest, then let them be reserved to those that have earned it. Bring justice down on Greyback's vile career. Bring justice to those he has cursed by changing laws like the one banning werewolf-afflicted from using a public laundry cauldron. Camelot is a wonderful ideal, Minister. But it only lasted thirty years in Britain-and less than three in the States. Mordred or Oswald-the perfect - even the pretense of it - attracts the assassin. To speak of another Camelot - there are three castles in the swamp-let their mistakes be the foundation of your triumph. They made enough of them."

Harry checked the time, and knew that McGonagall had asked they both be back soon, the two being integral to her plans to rebuild Hogwarts after the great battle. Harry's presence in particular was needed to assure nervous parents that the hero of the war was nearby, even if the enemy he supposedly kept them safe from was broken, scattered and utterly demoralized.

"Kingsley-you have our every confidence, because you have earned that every confidence. The one we all would have liked to see in this office is-"

Harry's eyes darted to an empty portrait, but he got right back on track.

"-not here. But he was never going to take it anyway. If he were alive-you would still be right here, because that is where he would want you. Despite some very tense moments, I learned to trust his judgment. I know what that judgment on you would be, and I trust it now."

"Thanks to you both, Harry-Hermione. I hope I can count on as much research and support from you both as we also take a hard look at the pureblood laws."

_**3**_

The pair left, and shortly after, Kingsley Shacklebolt showed his regard for the opinion of two young people. He summoned an aide, a man trying hard to live down his name in a world where basically everyone he knew had also been to Hogwarts.

"Filch? Is Macnair still grasping at any and all strings to try and get his sentence reduced?"

"Yes, Minister. His problem becomes, virtually all the Death Eaters and those of like mind declared themselves and committed naked atrocities and crimes with masses of non-criminal witnesses only too willing to testify. In short, he has no names to give. None of them do. It really is nothing like last time."

The young Filch was nothing like his bitter squib second cousin, who, it should be noted, gave him as a student an even harder time for their relation. Shacklebolt resisted pointing out to the young wizard that there were also many more innocent dead this time. He also kept back his opinion that, even in Voldemort's raging arrogance, he would not have had every last ally step forward until his rule was years beyond question. While there was no Voldemort to serve any longer, the idea of such a hidden one, likely in a trusted position, was yet another burden for the new Minister.

"Mister Filch - tell Macnair we have a job for him that could see ten years off his sentence, so long as he maintains his discretion. See how he responds."

"Minister?"

"Fergus-please. It's that important."

Again nothing like his relative, Filch nodded and left for Azkaban, a place soon to demand an auxiliary for lesser offenders, just as the Prime Minister had suggested. Alone once more, Shacklebolt looked at the same seemingly-empty portrait that had caught Harry Potter's attention.

"I think he saw you."

The portrait's sometime-resident fully emerged, an impish smile on his face.

"I can always speak to him at Hogwarts. But I fancy seeing him-or her-in this office someday on your side of the desk. I couldn't resist the temptation."

"What about Mister Weasley?"

"Dear Ron? I believe he may simply have too much common sense to ever want to enter politics."

Shacklebolt seized on the opening, as Dumbledore likely expected he would.

"Common sense? You mean of the variety you had?"

Dumbledore also likely knew that this question was part of the reason Shacklebolt amended the portrait gallery in his office to include noted figures once considered for his office.

"Kingsley. we have had this conversation before. To no gain for either of us."

Shacklebolt's face grew more than a bit arch.

"Your fear of handling true power, based on a youthful mistake, however horrid, allowed men of a lesser light to dim this office's standing for decades if not centuries to come!"

Kingsley almost moved to apologize for his words, but Dumbledore waved him off.

"Myself, I'm glad you finally said it outright. You are such a master of the diplomatic, my lad, I feared you never really would. Now, as to my sister-"

"Albus, I had no right-"

"Hush. As to Ariana, her fate did create fear in me. Fear not of power itself, but of power unchecked wherein the blessed come to see themselves as the blessing. I also chafed at the thought of such power that must also seem responsive on many fronts while still maintaining only its own way. The most disturbing thing I saw in Cornelius Fudge, early on, was how much he seemed to need my approval, even for matters of no importance. My attempt to wean him off this seemed just as disastrous in retrospect. But Kingsley, above all else, you must understand this : Had I taken the office, my own sense of entitlement would have been far worse-and having learned manipulation at the feet of Gellert Grindlewald, there would have been no stopping or opposing me."

"You don't know that."

"I know myself well enough. I know my own worst habits. I know what a misguided boy who thought he was a man did merely to keep the vaguest hints of approval and affection from Gellert. Imagine what I would do to keep public approval."

Shacklebolt, so recently thrust up against a harsh choice, was giving no ground at all.

"You would have won the war outright the first time. There would have been no second war."

Dumbledore kept his calm, and also his contrarianism.

"You assign me far too much value. I knew nothing of Tom's vile habit of creating Horcruxes at that time. He would have reemerged, and I would have been gauging public sentiment rather than setting Harry to destroying them."

"Yes, Albus, but even on your worst day, I cannot imagine..."

"I cannot imagine you truly wish to re-hash this argument, and not discuss what has you so overwrought, that the positive opinions of a Prime Minister, an American President, and Harry Potter cannot shake you loose of your profound doubts."

Shacklebolt sighed, and sat back down, looking for all the world like a man who'd lost a war rather than won it. Dumbledore waited, and then finally spoke again.

"When Fenrir Greyback invaded Hogwarts on the night of my...latest journey...he willfully bragged of eating Human flesh even when not in wolf form, and all manner of horrid things he had done and would do-and then he asked me if I was horrified. I told him no-I was only disappointed in, of, and for him. That seemed to both horrify and disappoint him. Kingsley, a man who ruins lives with the same attitude as a mischievous puppy that ruins a fine carpet is beyond help, hope or true redemption. When he said those things, I was disappointed, for I knew his life must soon end. Even without his penchant for betrayal of allies, Tom would have had no choice but to put Greyback down."

Shacklebolt shook his head.

"Any man's death diminishes me. I know this. But why be disappointed for someone so far gone?"

Dumbledore scratched the nose he didn't have.

"Because it was as Hermione said. The man and beast were nearly one. If he could ever have been turned, imagine the usefulness of telling the werewolf-afflicted how to better control themselves-and he did control himself-he merely chose to do further wrongs with his control than even his most mindless self would have done in beast form."

Shacklebolt still looked disheartened.

"So now I'm killing a possible resource?"

"Not at all. He has been past that for some time, as I just stated. Now, you are acting decisively against a would-be king of terror, a monster in word and deed, not merely in affliction."

"But Albus? How does that make my pathway any different than Fudge's bludgeon-to-drive-in-the-scalpel approach? So I'm not railroading the innocent. Goody for me. But in my opinion, too many rules were gone around after the first war, even when those convicted were guilty as sin."

Dumbledore knew he was talking to a seasoned Auror, a man prone to action but who also knew damned well why there was procedure and why it should be strictly adhered to whenever reasonably possible.

"The problem lies not in going around the rules, Kingsley. Inevitably, this occurs. The problem Fudge had, as he prosecuted the first war's aftermath that was his charge, was that he had no rules for doing so. To quote the great Muggle poet Robert Zimmerman, if one lives outside the law, one must remain honest. In short, one must have rules for going around the rules."

"Such as?"

"Such as, do not circumvent the rules merely to suit an artificial deadline. Real deadlines tend not to go by clocks, but by circumstances. All Cornelius and his lot did was try to meet viciousness with viciousness, and against certain enemies, this is a strategy made to fail. Those like the Death Eaters are invariably more practiced at being their worst, and likely have a different depth of low behavior as their standard. Think of the criminal who would not only gladly take your child hostage, but would just as gladly threaten their own child if they thought it would slow you down. Even with Cornelius' lack of imagination, I cannot see how he thought he could outfight Voldemort in the sewer, he a man who hated getting the soles of his shoes dirty. Having no well-defined places he would and would not go, he went anywhere and found himself quite literally nowhere."

Shacklebolt still wasn't convinced.

"He never was the most brilliant or inspired soul-and to his credit, he never pretended to be. Fudge, for all his flaws, knew what he was and was not-one of those things being you, a matter I think drove him to distraction. But he started his term as the kind of man who would have never tolerated an Umbridge, and would have made hash out of anyone even suggesting a mock trial like he gave Harry. Is that it then, Albus? Are wizards and witches of high ideals just put in to this office so they can devolve into Orwellian caricatures?"

Orwell had been a part of Muggle studies since _**1984 **_was first published. The lessons of what unchecked power could do haunted many a Hogwarts' student - just not apparently most of those in the office of Cornelius Fudge.

"Kingsley, I can tell you right here and now that none of these high-minded concerns came out of the mind of a younger Fudge, however idealistic he was, and I can say, he was perhaps not that idealistic at all. The American President you met had an infamous predecessor who was far closer to Cornelius in spirit than any may care to admit. The day he took office, Cornelius all but said that the Ministry defined right and wrong, and that all actions were made legal if done in the light of the power of the Minister. I told him that the statutes technically supported this view, but as a practical matter, it should be abandoned."

Shacklebolt looked shocked.

"He actually said this? I was a young Auror attached to the office then, and I heard no such thing."

"I would wager that he spoke differently to subordinates than to a perceived equal-and more's the pity. Forget the specters of Greyback and Fudge, and think instead of removing your office's influence over the Daily Prophet, so as to give them back their credibility, lost assaulting a foolish old man and a brave young boy. Think of your work on the pureblood laws, for this is the ripe time to purge them, and it will not last long. Despite your self-flagellation, Minister, you have not let this matter paralyze you, only slow you up. And if you must trouble your already questioning mind with vexing riddles on matters of state, let one main puzzle be not how to avoid the example of Fudge, who did know well how to keep up appearances, but rather what you can do to make this Ministry not so autocratic that the mechanism for Voldemort was already in place when he moved in."

Shacklebolt nodded.

"I won't let myself be rent in two by doubts, Albus. I can't rave against you for yours if I let mine take the wind out of me. Yet I feel as much self-doubt concerning this bout of indecision as I did coming to that choice, and that certainly serves me no better in the long term."

Dumbledore showed only the slightest signs of impatience with Shacklebolt's self-imposed logic circle. After all, he had seen how deeply the man had felt this literally life-and-death decision.

"Then by all means, have those doubts. Not to beat a dead career, but you know as well as I that, in his later career, Cornelius never doubted one single thing he said or did until he saw that Tom was indeed alive once more. Then, it all crumbled on him, the price of an absolutist stance taken without forethought, afterthought, or truly any thought at all. Kingsley, do you dare to imagine that there will not be moments when your aides will all advise against something you know to be correct? Are you so lost in your new office that you cannot see the day those two dear young people, with Ron and Neville and perhaps Draco Malfoy for good measure, walk in and tell you this or that new policy is a blunder so daft, it makes placing Umbridge in authority seem sane? Do you think for even a second that your career will pass without you regretting placing this portrait-space for me, as I roar about how what you plan can only lead to disaster?"

"Of course not! That is the nature of leadership-all of that is."

"And so it is with doubts-even those doubts undertaken on behalf of a man who made a pronounced determination to be less than a man. You come to me, to world leaders and to young heroes, and say that this matter vexes and tasks you."

Dumbledore left the portrait as he said some final words.

"To which we, one and all, say-Praise Be."

_**4**_

Tired to his bones of all deep thinking, the Minister actually welcomed the tedious business that took up much of the rest of his day. Then, not long before Tea, Fergus Filch returned from Azkaban. Out of breath, the younger man gratefully took in his drinks and snacks before telling his employer the news.

"You won't believe this, sir."

The two apparated as far as Azkaban's many and deeply-placed restrictions would allow, and at the way-station located in a false oil-platform, Shacklebolt told the head caretaker what the American President told him of the light framing of Azkaban's location. While not an imminent threat to the prison's secrecy, the mere fact of a hint of exposure had the witches and wizards on site agreeing to review their spells in light of Muggle-tech's ever-evolving efforts at artificial intelligence.

Filch and the Minister arrived in Azkaban to an unexpected welcome.

"Good show, Shacklebolt. I know you'll clean up some of the mess in that den."

Walden Macnair looked almost shrunken in his stance, hardly the strapping masked executioner most knew him as. In the prison stable, he gently stroked the Cliff-Scaling Donkeys, supposedly created in legend by Father Christmas for climbing the hills of Italy when reindeer simply stood no chance.

"The mess, Macnair?"

"Well, yes. No one in Cornelius' office knew who they were, ideologically. They all tried to be like you but sound and act like us. I'm glad it's done."

He stroked his charges anew.

"They've forgiven me, you know? The animals? They've forgiven my past. I hear them now. We must all treat them so much better."

Filch had told the tale while in transit. Bellatrix LeStrange had been given the task of punishing Macnair for failing to find Harry Potter. She had chosen Capoaudio Augmentus , or 'The Big Head Yell', as many a Muggle child knew from certain cartoons. In real life, this spell often had sanity-shattering consequences, and Macnair, once so fearsome and cocky, showed every evidence of this.

"Walden? Mister Filch tells me that you will not perform this task for us. Is that true?"

"I cannot, Kingsley. My friends would not forgive me again, should I resume my old ways. Even though-"

He whispered.

"-they don't like Greyback either. Bad press for them, and they call him a poser to boot-a wannabe. Oh-here. This bunch of carrots is for the Hippogriff I once tried to dispatch. I've heard he's back at Hogwarts, and he'll love these. The soil here is just wonderful for them. When you give them over, tell Hagrid he was right about so very many things. They're easier to talk to than people. They don't-they don't _yell_."

Filch took the offering, but Shacklebolt asked one more thing.

"If you cannot perform this task for us, can you at least instruct on proper stance and grip for using your old instrument of office?"

"I could certainly do that, so long as that person promised not to resume my old post or habits. No animal must be harmed. Who-would I be instructing?"

The Minister for Magic seized past his doubts to perform some very ugly work..

"Myself."

_**5**_

THE MINISTRY FOR MAGIC, 4 AM THE NEXT MORNING

The correspondent shook his head.

"See here, Shacklebolt-this is the way it's always been done. Give the Prophet first crack at this story for a full day, and we can form public opinion in your direction. Do it any other way and you run the risk of-"

"People thinking for themselves, Roger? Forming their own opinions?"

"Frankly, Yes. If you are going to attempt to reformulate the Codex Sanguine - the very backbone of Pureblood supremacy in the wizarding world - then you will need someone to shout down the yahoos and assorted unwashed before they start howling."

Shacklebolt would later that day demand a new Senior Ministry Correspondent be sent.

"Actually, the first Codex reforms will be tomorrow's story. Today's will be told when all are in attendance. Not before."

The man sighed.

"You've called Lovegood and the Quibbler."

"Hardly just him. Also Chunnel from The Weekly Cleric, and Hunderson from The Alley Cat."

The man named Roger almost lost control of his speech center as he sputtered in response.

"Chunnel? Chunnel doesn't believe in the Wizengamot's basis of authority, and Hunderson feels Britain's wizarding community is too international in tone. You'll never be able to control what they say or what they do with your words!"

A voice from the door gave a sarcastic retort.

"I don't know how sincere the Minister is in all this, Roger. But perhaps he wants the people's voices in on these matters, just for once."

The shorter of the two men who entered was also heard.

"Be warned, Mister Shacklebolt. I've mounted and framed the invite you sent the Cleric in ways that it can never be gotten rid of. You try and restrict us after this, I'll happily remind you of this day."

"Can't show the Minister some respect, Chunnel? Still aiming to see the masses take it all?"

"Still aiming to have the merchants buy it all, Hunderson? Ehhh-how's the coffee here?"

Hunderson and Chunnel looked with contempt at a suddenly very uncomfortable Roger.

"It's-rather good. I've never tried it before today, of course. Oh-do you have my egg sandwich?"

Chunnel pulled out a paper bag, and turned back Hunderson's offer of payment.

"No-I owed you for the buttered rolls you picked up after You-Know finally bought the farm."

Roger looked on in horror.

"They're eating-in your office!"

Shacklebolt would not regret seeing this man replaced.

"I have people to clean up after us, Roger. Now, gentlemen-the announcement."

Kingsley Shacklebolt breathed in.

"Yesterday, under my soon-to-expire emergency authority, I ordered the two tiered execution of Fenrir Greyback. I at first allowed him to receive the Dementors' Kiss. When I was informed that his unique circumstance might see his persistence past the infamous Kiss, I undertook to bring about his death by physical means. I did this because of the threat he presented, both as a prisoner and as a potential escapee. For good measure, my authority to do this sort of thing again, even under color of emergency power, has been revoked by the Wizengamot at my request. To re-obtain it would take more trouble than any one is worth, and this authority could never be given back without a week's notice and a prior public announcement. "

Chunnel nodded.

"I live near to the family of the young boy he savaged, Minister. Yet I must say I find this assumption of capital authority by the Ministry against a prisoner already in your custody to be most distressing. Was there nothing else to be done?"

"Ask yourself, Mister Chunnel, what would have happened to the first family an escaped Greyback encountered."

"Easy and cheap answer, Minister. A monster he was, but also a man, and a man has rights. You say you won't go down to that well again, but what block is there against you doing just that against the next threat you deem extraordinary?"

Shacklebolt breathed in.

"Hopefully, there is you and those like you, Mister Chunnel. I trust that you will task me well enough to keep me clear of that same well."

"Oh, count on that, sir."

Hunderson leaned forward.

"The bleeding hearts may wonder about his rights. Some of us actually dare to wonder about the rights of those he and the other Death Eaters brought to harm. Minister, there are still some nasty sorts about as we settle this war. Why would you toss away a useful tool of punishment out of some foolish guilt-ridden reflex?"

Roger tried to offer a half-sympathetic look of 'I Told You So', but Shacklebolt neither wanted nor needed it.

"Mister Hunderson, just as rules have exceptions, those exceptions must also have rules. If we set them aside too often, not only are we no better than those we have fought against-we are worse, for they are far more practiced at cleverness and ruthlessness. Greyback met certain exacting criteria for enabling the worst and most final punishments we have to offer. I have not found any other criminals-Death Eaters or No-who even come close to creating a need to make such a hideous choice."

Roger tried to regain his composure, perhaps sensing the nearness of the end of his tenure.

"The final execution. Minister, where was it conducted, and how was it performed?"

"In Azkaban, by the axe once used by Control Of Magical Creatures Chief Regulator Walden Macnair."

Shacklebolt waited until they had everything down before he finished up.

"The executioner in question-was myself, trained by Mister Macnair. This was an ugly business, not at all clean, and I wanted to show myself these matters should never be simple. "

Whatever their standings or political leanings, all three members of the fourth estate were thrown by Shacklebolt's bold admission, and set off to publish their stories. Shacklebolt then noted his window's curtains rustle.

"Feeling better, Mister Lovegood?"

Xenophilius Lovegood emerged, nodding as he sat down.

"So you actually did it yourself."

"I felt that I should, given what I was asking of others already."

"And...does that make you a manly hands-on kind of Minister, or a cautious responsible one not willing to ask of others what he would not do himself?"

Shacklebolt shook his head.

"I can say that I don't know the answer to that. I can say that I hope to never have to make such a choice ever again."

Lovegood nodded.

"Good answer. I like it. So-did he react at all to his imminent demise, or was it redundant in light of his receiving the Kiss?"

Shacklebolt looked about him, then closed the door and sealed the pictures against sound for a moment.

"Actually, he tried to attack me as I swung. Two others took up my slack and stopped him before he petered out again. It was over quickly after that."

Lovegood looked at his Minister.

"But you didn't tell any of them that."

Shacklebolt breathed in.

"Mister Lovegood, if he tried to attack me or anyone else, it might justify what I did in the eyes of some. I want this choice to be judged on itself, and the restrictions I have placed upon any future implementation of it. I know you to be interested chiefly in the truth, however oddly you might approach it. The truth is, I made one of my first acts of office to end the life and threat of Fenrir Greyback. That he attacked me is trivia-trivia I leave in your hands, to be published at a much later date, when public opinion on this matter is already firm."

Lovegood got that dreamy look he was so noted for.

"We have a deal, Minister-provided the Ministry addresses certain other concerns The Quibbler has raised."

Rather than mock or sigh at some of the more inane if not insane accusations the Quibbler had made, Shacklebolt showed that heroes and leaders both had assessed him correctly.

"I hereby appoint your daughter to an internship within the Ministry, her task to clear up such concerns as the fourth estate feels have been given short shrift in the past. In this task, she shall have access to all materials she needs to gain her goal."

Lovegood nodded, rose and looked at his host before leaving.

"I think you might do quite well in this."

So the day began for newly-minted Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt. His decision itself was controversial, as regarded the Greyback matter, but all parties on all sides admired the openness and transparency involved in the announcement. The Cleric chided the 'barn door-closing after the horse is glue' nature of the execution and the new restrictions that followed it. The Alley Cat chided yielding up this power at all, with so many Death Eaters and their crypto-allies still out and about. The Prophet began a years-long period of acting like a spurned lover and showing it, as regarded coverage of the Ministry, a sorry era ended only by the Weasley Buy-Out. The Quibbler largely remained the Quibbler, albeit with a concession that the conspiracies it saw were so deeply embedded in the Ministry, it might take multiple generations of good men like Shacklebolt to see them fully exposed.

As for the great man himself, his decisions and policies were noted and applauded for their huge amount of forethought and follow-through, as he sought to repair a hidden world that had all but engineered its own apocalypse. The decisions almost all got easier after Greyback, in that their very lack of starkness made it easier to slow down and take in all available information before acting.

Yet he would be criticized from time to time for slowing things down too much, over-checking his sources and their sources when a choice needed to be made. These instances he defended by saying that his instinct caused him to see his own office in the light of those he'd replaced, and that this was an instinct he had no choice but to obey.

Years later, a man whose hair never got one spot more manageable with maturity had taken his position under the friendliest transfer possible. Following this, Kingsley Shacklebolt opened a letter from his friend, the former British Prime Minister, saying that a seat had opened for a local MP, and that he could make the arrangements needed to begin his second political career. It placed him at the crux of a choice that could create a real bridge between two worlds, or expose one of them to its worst and most deeply felt nightmares.

Reading this letter, Kingsley had to laugh just a bit, feeling as though Hard Choice and he were old schoolmates, about to duel once more. He found that he welcomed it.


End file.
